Many creative assets—even those which appear to be simple—are formed not through a single, short-lived burst of creativity by one individual. Instead, some creative assets result from a more extended creative process and require more than one individual to contribute content, all of which must be managed to form the final version of the creative asset.
For example, a single individual may write a computer program in a single session. However, a computer program may result from a lengthier creative effort in which one person initiates the project and one or more people join to add, subtract from, organize, or otherwise further develop the code. One or more other people may manage the creative project during which the program is prepared to ensure, for example, that the project achieves its stated objectives.
Similarly, a single individual may capture what may be considered to be a highly creative image in a single, quick, photo-capturing session. However, the same type of image may be the product of a creative project that takes place also over a longer period of time and utilizes content drawn from more than one source. For example with respect to the latter, an image of a natural-appearing landscape may be formed by layering a series of images one on top of the other to produce a complex image, even one having an illusion of depth. Each of these layers, or the components appearing in one or more of the layers, may be created at different times, may come from different sources, may be organized according to a pre-existing plan, and may be drawn together to form the complex image in post-production management.
A book in its simplest form is comprised often of text that is joined at times with other content prepared especially for the book or drawn from other sources—such as photos, charts, tables, and drawings. Traditionally, this assemblage of content was printed to form a static creative asset. A more dynamic form of such a creative asset—an electronic book, or “e-book”—may be produced by joining photos, charts, tables, drawings, and animation with text but in a digital format that allows the works to be changed as needed.
Another creative asset—a motion picture—results typically from the creative efforts of many people who develop and contribute a wide variety of content. For purposes of this application, the term “content” means any imagery, sound, text, data, choreography, functional requirements, specifications, or other information, the expression of which may be rendered in analog or digital form. Certain of the content used to produce a motion picture is acquired through the use of one or more cameras. The acquired motion picture content may be rendered in a tangible form such as an analog form on photographic film or in a digital form on a memory device. When organized and shown in an intended sequence, the rendered images can produce the illusion of movement. For purposes of this application, the terms “motion picture”, “film”, and “movie” will be used interchangeably.
The process of making a motion picture—termed also “filmmaking” for purposes of this application—is conducted in various stages. Certain professionals are engaged to render certain creative services and make certain contributions of creative components during one or a number of such stages.
The initial stage in making a film is known as the development stage. In this stage, a producer selects the story around which the movie will be developed. The producer then engages one or more writers to produce various creative components such as a written synopsis, step outline, a treatment, and a screenplay. Typically, drafts of these various written works are circulated among the writers for comment, addition, and correction and then submitted to the producer for additional comment and revision. Visual elements such as drawings and “storyboards” may be prepared by other professionals in order to further develop and communicate the story. A storyboard can provide a visual description of events organized as they may be seen through a camera lens. Typically, the screenplay is a series of components of continuous action organized to tell the given story, each component of which is termed a “scene”.
The next stage of making a film is the pre-production stage. In this stage, many new professionals begin to make creative contributions to what may become the movie. They include the director—who, among other tasks, guides the creative direction of the movie—, one or more assistant directors, the director of photography, the sound designer or sound editor—who is charge of the audiography of the movie—, the production sound mixer—who is in charge of the sound of the movie—, an art director—who, among other tasks, works to develop the sets in which the movie is shot—, the production designer—who works with the art director to develop additional visual aspects of the movie—, the costume designer—who fashions the clothing worn by the actors in the movie—, the make up and hair designers, and the choreographer—who develops certain aspects of the movement of the actors such as in dance or fight sequences. Each of the professionals engaged during the pre-production stage may produce content and distribute it to one or more other professionals for review, comment, and correction. From such review, final versions of the content that may be used in the further development of the creative asset may be formed.
After the development and pre-production stages, the production stage begins. The production stage includes rendering a scene at a filming location. In order to render a scene at a filming location, certain or all the content developed during an earlier stage of the creative effort—such as the screenplay, costuming, choreography, scenery, make up, art elements, special effects, or lighting effect strategies—are accessed and utilized. The filming location may be any geographical location including those that are in or around a studio and those remote from the studio. The term “on-site” means the place where content is acquired by a content source in some tangible (analog or digital) form from the rendition of the scene at the filming location (and the area immediately adjacent to that place). The term “off-site” means any location other than “on-site”.
Members of the movie crew, such as the director, producer, script supervisor, screenwriter and others, at times watch or otherwise review the scene being acquired by the cameras and other equipment at a vantage point known as the “video village”. The video village may comprise one or more monitors—to which the audio and visual components that are being acquired are distributed (or “fed”) generally in real time—, so the assembled crew members can see what is happening in the shot without hampering the rendition of the scene or the recording crew. The director and assistant director define when the recording of the audio and visual aspects of the scene begins and ends. The production stage continues until the entire content from which the movie will be assembled is recorded. Certain of the terms used in the production stage will now be discussed.
A “shot” is the context or perspective, for example, used to acquire a scene. The director—at times after collaborative discussion with the one or more persons who are working on the project—identifies the shot. The director may instruct the film crew to repeat the acquisition process to ensure that the version of the shot that the director was seeking is recorded.
A “take” refers to each recorded version of a particular shot. The director may repeat “takes” of a scene for each shot until satisfied. Takes of each shot are generally numbered starting with “take one” and the number of each successive take is increased (e.g., “take four”) until it is believed that the desired version of a shot has been recorded. Accordingly, a shot in its unedited form may comprise a number of similar recorded versions, or “takes” of a scene. The script supervisor, and sound and camera crews, among others, may make (or “log”) technical notes of each “take”.
In contrast to a “shot”, a “clip” is formed as a result of the editing process and defined as the continuous captured images (“footage”) between two edits. “Stills”, takes, shots, clips, scenes, and sequences form a hierarchy of certain of the creative components produced during the creation of making a movie.
The terms “shooting”, “recording”, “filming”, “rendering”, “acquiring”, and “acquiring”, and close variants of these terms, mean the process of making a tangible expression of the scene rendered at a filming location—typically the visual and audible aspects of and data related to a scene. These terms shall be used interchangeably in this application.
Footage shot on a particular day is quickly processed so that members of the film crew have the opportunity to review it. Traditionally, processing meant in this context printing the footage onto film—so that it can be viewed with a projector. Processing came to involve also the transfer of content onto videotape—so that the footage can be viewed on a video monitor with a VCR. Quickly processed and unedited film footage, such as that shot during a day, was often known by the term “dailies” (but are known also as “rushes” or “daily rushes”). Dailies provide the film crew with the opportunity to determine what was rendered and whether that which was rendered can be used in the preparation of the creative asset. It is generally considered imperative that the film crew review the dailies as soon as possible after a rendering session. If there is a problem with the acquired content, the scene can be reshot before, for example, the set is taken down, the weather changes, or the actors are no longer available. Dailies are often made available also to producers or movie studio executives who may not be involved in the day-to-day production so that they can determine the status of the project. Dailies can also be used as an educational tool to show students of film and others how a scene was rendered or a movie made.
The final stage of making a film is called post-production. It refers to all stages of the film-making process after the end of the shooting or the recording of the movie. The post-production stages include editing the recorded content, revising, editing, re-recording and mixing the soundtrack, creating the sound design and sound effects, performing digital intermediate, color correction, and adding special visual effects. The post-production stage typically takes longer than the actual shooting of the film.
Many of the steps used to make a movie have not changed over the years. However, the form in which movies and other content is recorded has changed. For many years, movies were recorded on tangible medium—film—simply a sheet of plastic, such as polyester, nitrocellulose or cellulose acetate, coated with an emulsion. Another tangible medium on which images and sound were recorded is videotape, that is, magnetic tape. Both film and videotape are linear, analog records of information.
The earlier analog recording systems based on film and video are in the process of being replaced by non-linear, tapeless digital systems. The process of acquiring motion pictures as digital data rather than on film is termed “digital cinematography”. The term “footage” historically meant that which was recorded on linear, tape- and film-based systems. However, the term “footage” is still used when making reference to content acquired in non-linear, tapeless digital systems. In such “tapeless”, or “non-tape” based recording systems, the footage is retained as data in files. For this reason, “tapeless” or “non-tape” based recording systems are also termed “file-based media”, and these terms will be used interchangeably for purposes of this application. Unless clearly stated otherwise, the term “film” in the following is meant to include, but not be limited to, an analog means of acquiring or recording content.
With respect to file-based media, a single unit of storage media is generically termed a “storage media unit”. A “media file” is that file to which the video or audio tracks of data—that is, the audio and/or video content or footage—was recorded. A “media device” is the apparatus that is used to “read from and/or write to” file-based storage media. A file containing the acquired content can be copied to other storage systems and devices for further processing. One such device for storage of file-based content is a large array of computer disks—a Redundant Array of Independent Disks (“RAID”). The RAID may be connected to an editing system.
Various disadvantages are associated with many current systems and methods by which creative assets are made.
First, while many creative projects may benefit by allowing more rather than fewer people to be involved in the creative process, few systems exist that can facilitate the orderly participation by many people. The systems that do exist often permit such participation only with respect to one or a limited group of creative assets.
Traditional systems also do not easily allow someone managing the development of a creative asset to distribute the partially developed creative asset or components used in its development and specify and limit the type and scope of the creative participation that is permitted. As a result, the current systems allow creatives to render assistance in areas in which none may be sought, thereby producing inefficiencies.
Additionally, certain systems require specific technologies by which content developed for the project can be received, reviewed, edited, distributed to, for example, other possible collaborators, and/or returned to the sender. As a result, in order to participate in the project, even those that may collaborate on the development on a creative asset must acquire the specific technologies to receive and review the content. The time and cost associated with the acquisition of these technologies can act as a barrier to participation and prevent wider engagement of collaborators or contributors.
Overall, existing systems do not generally allow an open development model to be used for a wide variety of creative projects. For purposes of this application, an open development model is one that allows a wide group of people to participate in the development of a creative asset. For purposes of this application, a “consumer” is anyone that can participate in the development of a creative asset and may be someone working within a creative project, someone working outside the immediate scope of a creative project but possibly within the same industry, someone working outside the creative project but in a different industry, and someone who may be the end user of the creative asset (including a member of the audience to which the creative asset is directed). As a result, among others, a consumer may be one who engages in horizontal collaboration with another consumer in the development of a creative asset (that is, consumers within the same industry) and one who engages in vertical collaboration with another consumer in the development of a creative asset (for example, a consumer outside the industry who engages another consumer within the industry in which the creative asset is developed). End users include, but are not limited to those that are the purchasers of the creative asset or a service made possible by the creative asset. Examples of end users include the public (such as the audience—when the creative asset is a movie—or those that read a book or ebook), those that may have rendered financial services or legal services with respect to the development of or have a financial or legal interest in the creative asset, those charged with maintaining the records of the development of the creative asset (such as archivists), and those that seek to learn by analyzing how the creative asset was developed, and those that are trying to determine who contributed what components to the creative asset and therefore who owns some or all the creative asset.
More specifically, there are many disadvantages associated with the systems and methods by which films are made. Overall, systems and methods do not exist in which the project can be made more participatory and collaborative either collectively or selectively in a managed orderly fashion. Accordingly, creative input cannot be easily solicited or made possible during one or more stages of the project, or with respect to only certain or all the content that is being produced for the project, or ultimately to allow a wider group of consumers including the beneficiaries or purchasers of the creative asset to participate in the project.
To illustrate, particularly with respect to how and to what extent members of the movie crew can review the acquired content and provide input during the film making process, the current system can be time-consuming, require additional technologies to conduct the review, allows often only a poor quality version of the content to be distributed to the reviewer, and provides no means by which the comments of the reviewer can be retained with the content that was provided to the reviewer. Currently, once visual and audible content and related data is acquired, it may be either quickly printed onto film or copied to videotape or digital video discs (“dvds”). Either version is of a lower quality than that which can be produced from the acquired content. To conduct a review, a reviewer must have access to either a film projector and a flat surface onto which to project the film image, a videotape player or a dvd player, and a monitor. Processing may involve printing the footage onto film—so that it can be viewed with the film projector—or onto videotape or a dvd—so that the footage can be viewed on a video monitor through the use of a VCR or DVD player. For example, the acquired content may be processed to produce a video image that, while available for quick review by the film crew, is of poor quality and low resolution and have no, or poor quality audio associated with it. The acquired visual and audible content and related data may be subjected to other processing to produce visual content and audible content that has a quality higher than that which is sent to the video village. This better quality content forms the content that is distributed to the film crew as “dailies”. Despite the term, conventional processing systems employed to produce the higher quality images used as “dailies” often cannot produce and make available the higher quality images the same day as the content is acquired. Accordingly, the review of dailies often must take place more than one day after the content is acquired. However, for any one or more scenes, and the takes of them acquired on film or otherwise recorded in one day, many professionals—including, but not limited to the director, assistant director, producer, screen writer, art director, choreographer, sound designer, production designer, and costume designer—may have had some creative control over and/or may have made one or more contributions to produce that which was recorded. (Such a professional—who has made some creative contribution to or have had some creative control over some aspect of the film making process—will be termed also a “creative” for purposes of this application.) It is difficult to gather all such professionals—who may have made creative contributions that formed a portion or all of that which was used in the day's shooting—in one place for a review of the acquired content. Some such creatives—such as costume designers, model designers, set designers, directors, and choreographers—prepared that which was used on the day of shooting far in advance. If the creatives are unable to come to the location where the dailies are being shown, the creatives will be unable to review and comment on the acquired content. Errors may be overlooked. Opportunities to produce a better creative asset may be missed.
Even if the acquired content was made available to all who made a creative contribution to it, an efficient system and method does not exist by which each contributor can confirm that the contributor actually conducted such a review and has approved or not approved the content. Currently, if the creative does provide such approval or disapproval, it is dispatched in a communication that is separate from or not directly associated with the content that the creative viewed (such as simply through oral notification). Because many creatives typically make contributions to any one scene, many communications may be dispatched simply to confirm the receipt and review of one of the many scenes shot during one day of shooting.
An additional disadvantage of the current system and methods of film making is that it does not allow a contributor efficiently to make comments, offer suggestions, and provide instructions to another or other contributors or other crew members regarding the content recorded during a shoot. The current system requires that such comments, suggestions, and/or instructions be made in a separate document or documents and that the number of the scene and the number of the take be specifically identified. This is a time consuming process and one in which errors may be easily made such as in the identification of the number of the scene or take to which the communication is directed. Also, the person or persons to whom these comments are directed often must have more than one device to view the content and another to view the written comments. Such group of devices may not be particularly easy to carry and use in a coordinated fashion. If the reviewer's comments are lengthy, the person who received the comments may need to locate additional sources of electricity to power the additional device or devices.
Also, the current system and methods does not allow a contributor to make notes and add comments in close association with the content. Such notes and comments may be reviewed and considered later during the film making process such as by the same or other contributors or later by those seeking to understand the creative decisions that were made during the course of filming. The lack of archives closely associated with the content makes the creative decision-making process less transparent.
Furthermore, the current system and methods of film making does not permit a director to determine which, if any, of the professionals who had some creative responsibility over components used in a day's shoot did actually review and approve or disapprove the subject components or otherwise make comments, offer suggestions, or provide further instructions to the director or other members of the crew.
Accordingly, there is a demand for a system and methods that facilitate the timely access and review of content by one or more members of a creative group—so that a creative asset can be developed in an orderly fashion and more in line with the objectives of the creative production—or by a wider consumer group. The present invention satisfies this demand.